Revealing new swing analysis technology from golf’s leading
simulator company, in partnership with the European Tour’s
biomechanics initiative, is transforming the coaching experience
for amateurs as well as leading tour stars.
Dominic Pedler visited Urban Golf in London to see the latest
aboutGolf system in action.

The steady rise in biomechanicalbased
coaching across sports ranging
from track and field to skiing, rowing
- and increasingly golf - reflects the
success in tailoring technique according
to an individual’s physical capabilities.

We can all dream of the perfect
swing but without the necessary flexibility,
movement and power we’ll
never achieve it.

Of course, today’s super-fit tour
pros have rigorous workout routines
that prepare them for developing
their awesome power-driven swings.
But for the rest us to play to our potential,
instructors are increasingly
acknowledging the importance of
coaching within the context of our
limitations, which biomechanics
measure in terms of the forces operating
in our individual swings.

And having seen success from
leading experts with all levels of
golfer, the European Tour itself is
launching its own coaching initiative,
European Tour Performance Institute,
which is being be rolled out across
their own portfolio of golf courses in
the UK and continental Europe.

Central to the programme is the
fascinating new Perform Pro software
developed by US company, aboutGolf,
in conjunction with their special force
plates that measures the golfer’s balance,
posture and the dynamic forces
generated throughout the swing. This
adds a new dimension to conventional
swing analysis and complements
the biomechanical screenings
and assessment that underlie this
whole approach.

AboutGolf will already be familiar
to those city slickers who frequent
the three London branches of Urban
Golf, the indoor operator that offers
an almost virtual golf experience in
state-of-the-art simulators along with
the latest approaches to instruction
and clubfitting.

Indeed, Urban Golf are integrating
aboutGolf’s new system into their
own coaching programmes, with the
all important aG Balance Pro force
plates already installed in the hightech
Performance Centre at their High
Street Kensington branch. This was
the venue for a recent ETPI demo in
which leading coach, Simon Holmes,
and the European tour’s leading biomechanics
consultant, JJ Rivet, assessed
and instructed a group of amateurs using this highly customized
approach.

As JJ Rivet has proved in recent
years, biomechanics combined with
the new Balance Pro technology is
proving a coaching revelation. At the
simplest level it provides instant feedback
to both coach and player on a
variety of data including the relative
weight between left and right feet
(and also between heel and toe) from
address through to follow-through.

This immediately throws up faults,
most obviously a reverse pivot, while
helping the golfer to feel the correct
weight transfer that is so fundamental
to maximizing their distance potential.

The latest Perform Pro
software from aboutGolf
provides instant feedback
on weight transfer
and the forces generated
by a player throughout
the golf swing

All the relevant numbers are
thrown up clearly as digital graphics
in the programme, as we saw on
Urban Golf’s giant 12ftx11ft screen.
The software’s attention to detail is
impressive: for example, sudden dips in the graph of weight shift in the
downswing help to identify golfers
with a tendency to lift up their body
slightly before impact, thereby causing
an inefficient loss of force (force
which, frustratingly, the player had already
generated). Indeed, it seems
that ‘good’ and ‘bad’ golfers can be
very effectively identified simply by
differences in their weight transfer
profiles.

“Biomechanics in golf is all about
identifying what forces a player can
generate and using them to help
rather than hinder their swing,” explains
JJ Rivet, who is using the
aboutGolf system with leading
French tour stars such as Raphael
Jacquelin as well as the French national
amateur team. “This involves
assessing a player’s flexibility,
strength and movement to appreciate
how he can make his swing more
efficient within these natural limitations
which, for every golfer, will
also change over time.”

The aboutGolf system looks set to
be widely adopted among leading independent
coaches once the portable
version of the Perform Pro package is
finalized.

In the meantime, Urban Golf is
showcasing the system alongside
their golf simulator experience which
now also adopts the latest generation
of aboutGolf’s 3Trak ball-tracking
technology.

We first mentioned the important
switch from laser-based to camerabased
tracking back in Issue 105, and
now the sixth generation of 3Trak is
truly pushing the envelope in terms
of capturing and representing a
golfer’s ball-flight on an indoor digital
screen.

“The technology has got to the
level where, even if a technically more
accurate version is developed, I doubt
even the very best golfers could discern
any differences,” says Urban
Golf’s Managing Director, James Day,
who in his quest to offer the ultimate
golf simulator experience has been
following the R&D closely for almost
a decade.

“With this greater accuracy and realism
of graphics the golf simulator
experience continues to evolve,” explains
Day. “There’s an ever expanding
library of digitally-scanned
courses to play, while serious golfers
now use the facility as a driving range
confident that the visual flight and
the accompanying data is providing
them with highly accurate feedback.”
Not that the R&D stops here.

“There are still new challenges in
making the concept more interactive,
allowing golfers to play each other
online and letting them ‘compete’ in a
digital version of a real tour event,
complete with leaderboards, sights
and sounds,” envisages Day.

With the Kensington, Smithfield
and Soho branches now all offering
the same standard of tracking, and
aboutGolf technology transforming
the instruction potential, Urban Golf
look set to grow their 1,200-a month
customer visits across the three venues.
Not least as the British winter approaches….

For more information visit:
www.urbangolf.co.uk, www.aboutgolf.
com

Reproduced with kind permission of Golf International Magazine

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